silver_fox_ninja (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silver_fox_ninja) wrote2014-01-07 08:22 am
silver_fox_ninja) wrote2014-01-07 08:22 am
WHO'S THAT POKEMON!? The Mun behind the Muses.
I've seen this meme around but I think I tl;dr too much to really discuss it in a Twitter-based mass network site to do this properly.
For starters, I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on April 1, 1974. According to my mother, I was supposed to be born March 31, but yeah, my dad calls me the joke. (Ha ha, very funny.) I grew up primarily in a military home, my father was a Vietnam Net who later joined the National Guard, my mother worked for the Department of Human Services.
I started my love for cars and getting my hands on tool very early in life. According to my dad, I was about 3 when I learned the difference between a Phillips screwdriver and a standard flat-head. By the time I was learning how to read, I started learning the parts of an engine through reading my father's Chilton manuals. I found those better than Haynes any day. I took a liking to non-fiction books around the time I was in the third grade and was called weird because of it yet I still had a wild imagination.
I love figure skating and ballet even though I can't do any of those things. My love for music and the arts comes from my mother. I was the artist, and the creator of the family and I was often told by my dad that I would be a starving artist because as I grew older, my love for the arts grew stronger. It was like I couldn't really satisfy him any more. Still, I wanted to keep working on cars as soon as I was allowed to.
My family moved from Oklahoma City to San Antonio, Texas when I was 8 years old. I picked up on Spanish relatively easy but then I just lost interest in the language from listening to my family speak about racism and decided that it was better not to get involved. I hated conflict and even more, I didn't like to feel like I was the center of disappointment so I stopped trying.
When I turned 13, I helped my dad rebuild an engine. I was excited. I also started learning about guns, gun safety and hunting. (I was the only girl in the NRA Juniors class.) Around that time, I started learning more about the Army and wanted to join even though I was still an artist. I took art classes, and industrial arts in high school along with Auto Shop. Again, I was the only girl. I thought for once that I was going to gain my father's approval but that didn't happen.
He tried to force me into taking typing classes and I didn't really think that was necessary at all. I learned how to do that on my own anyway and thought it was just another class that I would breeze through without much thought. I was right. And I was bored. I got out of those classes as soon as I was able to and switched back to the arts without my father's approval. By the time I was 16, I was making my own decisions and loving it. Of course dad hated it but I didn't care anymore at that point and defended myself by telling him that I would be a better hiring prospect if I learned different things instead of just mastering one skill.
My hobbies were many. I was a bowler, raced dirt bikes in the 25 and 50cc classes (never won but that wasn't the point), played the viola, violin, and cello while later picked up the acoustic guitar, sketching, water color, calligraphy, and writing. The writing helped me with my typing skills. I used to be a sight typer but it's been years since I looked at the keyboard. While I'm still not perfect or that fast, I'm fine with the speed that I have.
We moved from San Antonio to Orlando, Florida when my father received orders to go to the 841st Engineers as AGR or Active Guard Reserve. Talk about a fun trip that was. I spent my 15th birthday on the road and my birthday was completely forgotten because we had a breakdown in Slidel, Louisiana. At first I was upset but then later I grew to understand that alternators wait for no one about three hours later. They just go and it's an unpredictable thing.
My mom did apologize and I just shrugged and said, "There's always next year." At the very least, I got to pick the place to go during our trip to visit and I called out at dinner, "Let's go to the Naval museum in Mobile. I want to see the U.S.S Alabama." I think I shocked my dad. It was along the way and I got to see the submarine and the ship. I was excited.
Inside the ships were pretty awesome. They were Arizona Class ships and it was the sister ship to the Arizona. I think it was then that I wanted to join the Navy instead even though my dad made fun of me and said that I was going to be a Squid. It was fun for me. Sure the spaces were cramped but I was more in it for the way things were done and the efficiency. At the time, I was all about timing. I think I lost that as I grew older.
Heavy machined always fascinated me. They were like marvels to behold. When I saw the size of those pistons, I was floored. They were HUGE! The engines on those ships were massive! I always loved engines from the smallest electric motors to the gigantic! The rocker arms were about the size of a house long and about as tall as my leg. Oh yeah, I was digging it.
I was in AFJROTC and graduated a 1st LT Flight Commander. I performed my duties and was willing to do just about anything for my Flight. I didn't mind at all. I was nicknamed Zelda for a while because I had a love for elves. I played Dungeons and Dragons which was gaining popularity at the time. I did some volunteer work in the school's library and loved it. It was quiet, I worked at my own pace and I had completed all my tasks without fail. I was known as a pretty dependable person and voted most likely to become a librarian among my peers. It was cute, to say the least, but I didn't think of it as a career. I had my sights set on other things. Still, I enjoyed it while I was there.
I was part of the German Club and Psychology Club my junior and senior years. I later joined the Navigator's Club which did a lot of map reading and we used a compass and sextet. That was a very useful skill that I still use today. GPS's are nice but they're not always accurate. I learned how to use just about every type of chart known from the standard road map to the topographical charts that determine elevation. Trust me, they look strange but they're really useful for determining how high a person needs to fly. I learned how to read radars and laser systems. The newer stuff I'm not familiar with at all. I kinda got out of all of that.
I joined the Navy April 10, 1993 and I was 18 at the time. I really loved my work and boot camp, pfft, it was a cinch. The only thing I hated about it was the demerits. I got one and it was hell paying it off to get it back. Needless to say, I never did anything like that again. It's not that I didn't like the exercises, it was the demeaning way the Division Officers treated me that I didn't like. I was used to the abuse from my father and it made me just hate them. The insults were just stupid so I did my best to block them out. I never forgot their faces even though I don't remember everything they said.
I never saw the inside of the gas chamber. I had my wisdom teeth pulled the day I was supposed to go and boy did everyone look sick. I think I was hated for it that I didn't go and all my shipmates said was, "That's some nasty shit." I believe it. My favorite and most memorable parts were the times I freaked out my company commander. I still laugh to this day what she said to my dad. "Odie scares me."
I didn't understand why until she told him the reason. Petty Officer Callow said that I was not only quiet, I was just one of those people that didn't seem the type (having super thick glasses and had a sweet face) that I could use the gun better than she could. My dad, I think, actually felt proud that day. He showed up to my boot camp graduation wearing his Class A uniform. He was a sharpshooter and had Marksman medals so yeah, I knew how to use a gun very well. At the time I had a 20/675 prescription and my glasses had to be orders. It was funny, actually. Now at 39, I have a 20/875 so that's a huge difference.
So, later I got out of the Navy with an Honorable because of some hardships meaning that I couldn't do my assigned duties without hindrance and later married into Navy. I met my husband in San Diego, California where we were both attending MS A School. Around this time, war was breaking out it Yemen and Baghdad. One of our ships was lost in the conflict and they needed people. My husband was attached to the Atlantic Fleet so his chances of going were pretty high. It came a huge relief when I found out that the ship he was on was a flag so that really helped. Talk about luck. We weren't married at the time and he was in the process of a divorce. There is a 6 year difference in age between us. I was 19, he was 25.
After I was out of the Navy and on my own, he was out to sea and we were saving money. His divorce was finalized a year later when I turned 20 and in 1994, we were married on board the U.S.S. Wasp on June the 20th. It was a new ship of its class and we were the first couple to be married on it. It was an event. We had our pictures taken for the newsletters, and we were talked about for months, even years later. It was a busy time then because the next day they had to go underway to Haiti to take care of a situation that was arising there. It was called Operation: Haiti Crisis. They had with them President Jimmy Carter on board the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan that also joined in on the operation. I was left alone with a new baby and I was glued to the news for the first time in years.
I cried when the conflict was over but my husband still couldn't leave. They had to stay behind to monitor which was fine. At least I knew there was no more risk of war. Our first car together was a 1979 Toyota Celica that I bought for 300 dollars. It was in bad physical condition but everything worked. I used it for a trade for a newer car, a 1984 Nissan Sentra that was a total POS. It made me think twice about trading in the Celica. I finally got rid of it and purchased a 1981 Volkswagen Quantum five cylinder and loved it.
When we moved to Hawaii, we took the car with us. That was in 1996. Everything about Hawaii was awesome! The people were great, the scenery was breathtaking and the food was amazing. But the prices...yeah, they were high. At the time it was 3.97 for a gallon of gas when I was used to paying 1.19 in Norfolk. I gained a lot of weight then and my daughter Bria was born one year later in 1997. To pass the time while my husband was away, I started getting into AIM chats and started RPing. It helped me cope with the stresses I was undergoing while my husband was risking his life everyday at the Ford Island Corrections Center. It wasn't a nice place. It was a tiny island and the heaviness from being the resting place of the U.S.S. Arizona was pretty hard. I cried several times passing it.
I lived so close to it I could walk to the memorial. I did a lot of walking in Hawaii and took the bus when I didn't have a lot of errands to save on gas. It was nice to do something like that once in a while. At least people weren't crazy to make the ride difficult. Most were tourists and it was nice to talk to different people.
I joined the Hawaii Tae Kwon Do Academy there and earned my brown belt. While I was still heavy, I had technique and I pushed myself hard into training. It was a great stress reliever. I was still rping and writing along with playing video games. Tekken then started to become an obsession of mine and I was physically learning the moves. I was able to do some of them but not a lot of them. I think it was because my center of gravity wouldn't allow it.
The time came to move to Hawaii to Kansas where my husband got out of the service for tenure issues. I hated those tests. They worked on a 5.0 system and if you didn't get a perfect score, you didn't get promoted. It was bullshit but that's another matter entirely. So we moved there, and got in contact with his brother Ted. I didn't know it at the time but he was a two-faced SOB that thought he was right all the time. Yep, needless to say, we butted heads a lot. It didn't bother me when he was talking about me but the moment he started in on how I should raise my kids, I came unglued and told him to get out. His wife dawn thought I was a bitch. Life made me hard and I wasn't about to take the abuse from anyone that threatened to disrupt what little balance we had. We were still adjusting to a new culture, getting things ready for finding a job and getting our lives in order, it was hell.
Adjusting to civilian life from a military one was way harder than I had ever imagined. At least during a military move, we had our things packed and shipped for us, our homes already picked out in some cases and we had a job already waiting. This new life was a disaster for us and it stressed us out to the point that we were fighting almost on a daily basis because of it. That never happened before. So when Ted decided to muscle in, I snapped. Pete said I had gone too far and I almost slapped him.
We were later separated and I realized that it wasn't my husband's fault. I left my job at Wal-Mart as a service technician and I wasn't in the mind to stay in Edwardsville. I tried to find work in a little town called Chanute, Kansas and I did twice. I was laid off of one job because I wasn't there long enough and the season wasn't too good for selling RV's. I laid the carpet and cut them for this company called Snow Bird. I started out as a carpet cuter, trimmer and layer for the company. I was there for about a month.
Then a week later, I worked for a company called PC Board where we manufactured circuit boards for Motorola and other companies. My primary job there was a cutter and scorer. It was a pretty technical job that required a lot of math skills. You had to know Algebra or you didn't get your foot in the door. The pay I was getting wasn't worth the headache and so I went back to Edwardsville and reconciled with my husband. He took me back and we started over.
The break was a wake-up call for me. I realized that with all the crap we had gone through between the battles and him leaving to protect this country, I took for granted what we had and I was the one that apologized. It was a hard pill to swallow but it was worth it to try again. We both started looking into security and for years we worked together and our marriage became stronger.
Then tragedy struck. In 2001, after the wake of 911, my father-in-law who helped us out and told Pete that I was worth giving another chance, he lost his battle with cancer on Nov. 28th just two days after Thanksgiving. It was a devastating blow. I couldn't work anymore and I lost myself to grief. For two years, I had grown so fond of Daddy We that I thought of him like my own father but better. To this day, I'll never forget his words he said to my husband about me in the little diner outside of town that we always went to on Sundays when I returned. "She may be rough around the edges but she's smart. She's worth fighting off Hell to keep her." I think in his own way, he had forgiven me because I realized my faults and saw right through the barrier that I had put up.
A few years had passed and I was back working but not in security. I became a package handler and I was working hard. I can't count how many times I would come home in severe pain. As time moved on and I spent years working for Fed Ex, (About 5 to be exact) I was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder. Around this time, my brother Ted and his wife thought that it was a good idea to call CPS (Child protective Services) on us because we refused them custody of our kids since they couldn't have any of their own. They claimed that we were unfit and they retaliated against us for not allowing them in our home, but there was more under the surface that we never knew about. Of course we couldn't prove this and so my son was later removed from the home thanks to Ted's involvement and no thanks from my psychologist's reports for backing me like he said they would. This happened in 2004 and he was 10 at the time.
In 2007, three years later, I found out that he had committed suicide from a friend that was a police officer. A friend of hers that worked for KCPD and another from Child Protective Services that handled the case told her about it. I didn't find this out until the day we were moving away to go to Texas. I had enough of that place and it was then that I knew there was no reason to stay. With a brother-in-law that was worse than the devil in both greed and pride, we had nothing to hold on to.
We stayed with my parents in San Antonio for a while and I held down 3 jobs. My writing was put on hold and so were my other plans. In 2008 I saved up some money and took a trip with my daughter, just me and her, to California to meet a friend. She got to see Disney Land, Long Beach and she saw a lot of celebrity impersonators when we visited Los Angelas. We had a blast.
We moved into this little house not far from my parent's where I'm still currently living with my 11 cats, 2 birds, a dog, husband and daughter. It's a happy home now. I'm still adjusting with some things but I have a better attitude about life now. I'm approaching 40 soon and I'm still writing. RP used to be a coping mechanism for me and while I don't talk about my life much, it's because now I have closure. Now, RP is a way for me to become creative and work with others to create a world with the characters I have. I don't see it as a hobby, I see it as a window into a new world. It may sound weird to some people but my imagination hasn't left me and it has always been there for me.
I'm coping with a lot of pain now from wrecking my body but that's okay. I think I lived a pretty full life and there's a lot more in store for me in the future. I'll face it and the challenges with dignity.
So, that's my life in a nutshell. Yep, it's a big nut.
For starters, I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on April 1, 1974. According to my mother, I was supposed to be born March 31, but yeah, my dad calls me the joke. (Ha ha, very funny.) I grew up primarily in a military home, my father was a Vietnam Net who later joined the National Guard, my mother worked for the Department of Human Services.
I started my love for cars and getting my hands on tool very early in life. According to my dad, I was about 3 when I learned the difference between a Phillips screwdriver and a standard flat-head. By the time I was learning how to read, I started learning the parts of an engine through reading my father's Chilton manuals. I found those better than Haynes any day. I took a liking to non-fiction books around the time I was in the third grade and was called weird because of it yet I still had a wild imagination.
I love figure skating and ballet even though I can't do any of those things. My love for music and the arts comes from my mother. I was the artist, and the creator of the family and I was often told by my dad that I would be a starving artist because as I grew older, my love for the arts grew stronger. It was like I couldn't really satisfy him any more. Still, I wanted to keep working on cars as soon as I was allowed to.
My family moved from Oklahoma City to San Antonio, Texas when I was 8 years old. I picked up on Spanish relatively easy but then I just lost interest in the language from listening to my family speak about racism and decided that it was better not to get involved. I hated conflict and even more, I didn't like to feel like I was the center of disappointment so I stopped trying.
When I turned 13, I helped my dad rebuild an engine. I was excited. I also started learning about guns, gun safety and hunting. (I was the only girl in the NRA Juniors class.) Around that time, I started learning more about the Army and wanted to join even though I was still an artist. I took art classes, and industrial arts in high school along with Auto Shop. Again, I was the only girl. I thought for once that I was going to gain my father's approval but that didn't happen.
He tried to force me into taking typing classes and I didn't really think that was necessary at all. I learned how to do that on my own anyway and thought it was just another class that I would breeze through without much thought. I was right. And I was bored. I got out of those classes as soon as I was able to and switched back to the arts without my father's approval. By the time I was 16, I was making my own decisions and loving it. Of course dad hated it but I didn't care anymore at that point and defended myself by telling him that I would be a better hiring prospect if I learned different things instead of just mastering one skill.
My hobbies were many. I was a bowler, raced dirt bikes in the 25 and 50cc classes (never won but that wasn't the point), played the viola, violin, and cello while later picked up the acoustic guitar, sketching, water color, calligraphy, and writing. The writing helped me with my typing skills. I used to be a sight typer but it's been years since I looked at the keyboard. While I'm still not perfect or that fast, I'm fine with the speed that I have.
We moved from San Antonio to Orlando, Florida when my father received orders to go to the 841st Engineers as AGR or Active Guard Reserve. Talk about a fun trip that was. I spent my 15th birthday on the road and my birthday was completely forgotten because we had a breakdown in Slidel, Louisiana. At first I was upset but then later I grew to understand that alternators wait for no one about three hours later. They just go and it's an unpredictable thing.
My mom did apologize and I just shrugged and said, "There's always next year." At the very least, I got to pick the place to go during our trip to visit and I called out at dinner, "Let's go to the Naval museum in Mobile. I want to see the U.S.S Alabama." I think I shocked my dad. It was along the way and I got to see the submarine and the ship. I was excited.
Inside the ships were pretty awesome. They were Arizona Class ships and it was the sister ship to the Arizona. I think it was then that I wanted to join the Navy instead even though my dad made fun of me and said that I was going to be a Squid. It was fun for me. Sure the spaces were cramped but I was more in it for the way things were done and the efficiency. At the time, I was all about timing. I think I lost that as I grew older.
Heavy machined always fascinated me. They were like marvels to behold. When I saw the size of those pistons, I was floored. They were HUGE! The engines on those ships were massive! I always loved engines from the smallest electric motors to the gigantic! The rocker arms were about the size of a house long and about as tall as my leg. Oh yeah, I was digging it.
I was in AFJROTC and graduated a 1st LT Flight Commander. I performed my duties and was willing to do just about anything for my Flight. I didn't mind at all. I was nicknamed Zelda for a while because I had a love for elves. I played Dungeons and Dragons which was gaining popularity at the time. I did some volunteer work in the school's library and loved it. It was quiet, I worked at my own pace and I had completed all my tasks without fail. I was known as a pretty dependable person and voted most likely to become a librarian among my peers. It was cute, to say the least, but I didn't think of it as a career. I had my sights set on other things. Still, I enjoyed it while I was there.
I was part of the German Club and Psychology Club my junior and senior years. I later joined the Navigator's Club which did a lot of map reading and we used a compass and sextet. That was a very useful skill that I still use today. GPS's are nice but they're not always accurate. I learned how to use just about every type of chart known from the standard road map to the topographical charts that determine elevation. Trust me, they look strange but they're really useful for determining how high a person needs to fly. I learned how to read radars and laser systems. The newer stuff I'm not familiar with at all. I kinda got out of all of that.
I joined the Navy April 10, 1993 and I was 18 at the time. I really loved my work and boot camp, pfft, it was a cinch. The only thing I hated about it was the demerits. I got one and it was hell paying it off to get it back. Needless to say, I never did anything like that again. It's not that I didn't like the exercises, it was the demeaning way the Division Officers treated me that I didn't like. I was used to the abuse from my father and it made me just hate them. The insults were just stupid so I did my best to block them out. I never forgot their faces even though I don't remember everything they said.
I never saw the inside of the gas chamber. I had my wisdom teeth pulled the day I was supposed to go and boy did everyone look sick. I think I was hated for it that I didn't go and all my shipmates said was, "That's some nasty shit." I believe it. My favorite and most memorable parts were the times I freaked out my company commander. I still laugh to this day what she said to my dad. "Odie scares me."
I didn't understand why until she told him the reason. Petty Officer Callow said that I was not only quiet, I was just one of those people that didn't seem the type (having super thick glasses and had a sweet face) that I could use the gun better than she could. My dad, I think, actually felt proud that day. He showed up to my boot camp graduation wearing his Class A uniform. He was a sharpshooter and had Marksman medals so yeah, I knew how to use a gun very well. At the time I had a 20/675 prescription and my glasses had to be orders. It was funny, actually. Now at 39, I have a 20/875 so that's a huge difference.
So, later I got out of the Navy with an Honorable because of some hardships meaning that I couldn't do my assigned duties without hindrance and later married into Navy. I met my husband in San Diego, California where we were both attending MS A School. Around this time, war was breaking out it Yemen and Baghdad. One of our ships was lost in the conflict and they needed people. My husband was attached to the Atlantic Fleet so his chances of going were pretty high. It came a huge relief when I found out that the ship he was on was a flag so that really helped. Talk about luck. We weren't married at the time and he was in the process of a divorce. There is a 6 year difference in age between us. I was 19, he was 25.
After I was out of the Navy and on my own, he was out to sea and we were saving money. His divorce was finalized a year later when I turned 20 and in 1994, we were married on board the U.S.S. Wasp on June the 20th. It was a new ship of its class and we were the first couple to be married on it. It was an event. We had our pictures taken for the newsletters, and we were talked about for months, even years later. It was a busy time then because the next day they had to go underway to Haiti to take care of a situation that was arising there. It was called Operation: Haiti Crisis. They had with them President Jimmy Carter on board the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan that also joined in on the operation. I was left alone with a new baby and I was glued to the news for the first time in years.
I cried when the conflict was over but my husband still couldn't leave. They had to stay behind to monitor which was fine. At least I knew there was no more risk of war. Our first car together was a 1979 Toyota Celica that I bought for 300 dollars. It was in bad physical condition but everything worked. I used it for a trade for a newer car, a 1984 Nissan Sentra that was a total POS. It made me think twice about trading in the Celica. I finally got rid of it and purchased a 1981 Volkswagen Quantum five cylinder and loved it.
When we moved to Hawaii, we took the car with us. That was in 1996. Everything about Hawaii was awesome! The people were great, the scenery was breathtaking and the food was amazing. But the prices...yeah, they were high. At the time it was 3.97 for a gallon of gas when I was used to paying 1.19 in Norfolk. I gained a lot of weight then and my daughter Bria was born one year later in 1997. To pass the time while my husband was away, I started getting into AIM chats and started RPing. It helped me cope with the stresses I was undergoing while my husband was risking his life everyday at the Ford Island Corrections Center. It wasn't a nice place. It was a tiny island and the heaviness from being the resting place of the U.S.S. Arizona was pretty hard. I cried several times passing it.
I lived so close to it I could walk to the memorial. I did a lot of walking in Hawaii and took the bus when I didn't have a lot of errands to save on gas. It was nice to do something like that once in a while. At least people weren't crazy to make the ride difficult. Most were tourists and it was nice to talk to different people.
I joined the Hawaii Tae Kwon Do Academy there and earned my brown belt. While I was still heavy, I had technique and I pushed myself hard into training. It was a great stress reliever. I was still rping and writing along with playing video games. Tekken then started to become an obsession of mine and I was physically learning the moves. I was able to do some of them but not a lot of them. I think it was because my center of gravity wouldn't allow it.
The time came to move to Hawaii to Kansas where my husband got out of the service for tenure issues. I hated those tests. They worked on a 5.0 system and if you didn't get a perfect score, you didn't get promoted. It was bullshit but that's another matter entirely. So we moved there, and got in contact with his brother Ted. I didn't know it at the time but he was a two-faced SOB that thought he was right all the time. Yep, needless to say, we butted heads a lot. It didn't bother me when he was talking about me but the moment he started in on how I should raise my kids, I came unglued and told him to get out. His wife dawn thought I was a bitch. Life made me hard and I wasn't about to take the abuse from anyone that threatened to disrupt what little balance we had. We were still adjusting to a new culture, getting things ready for finding a job and getting our lives in order, it was hell.
Adjusting to civilian life from a military one was way harder than I had ever imagined. At least during a military move, we had our things packed and shipped for us, our homes already picked out in some cases and we had a job already waiting. This new life was a disaster for us and it stressed us out to the point that we were fighting almost on a daily basis because of it. That never happened before. So when Ted decided to muscle in, I snapped. Pete said I had gone too far and I almost slapped him.
We were later separated and I realized that it wasn't my husband's fault. I left my job at Wal-Mart as a service technician and I wasn't in the mind to stay in Edwardsville. I tried to find work in a little town called Chanute, Kansas and I did twice. I was laid off of one job because I wasn't there long enough and the season wasn't too good for selling RV's. I laid the carpet and cut them for this company called Snow Bird. I started out as a carpet cuter, trimmer and layer for the company. I was there for about a month.
Then a week later, I worked for a company called PC Board where we manufactured circuit boards for Motorola and other companies. My primary job there was a cutter and scorer. It was a pretty technical job that required a lot of math skills. You had to know Algebra or you didn't get your foot in the door. The pay I was getting wasn't worth the headache and so I went back to Edwardsville and reconciled with my husband. He took me back and we started over.
The break was a wake-up call for me. I realized that with all the crap we had gone through between the battles and him leaving to protect this country, I took for granted what we had and I was the one that apologized. It was a hard pill to swallow but it was worth it to try again. We both started looking into security and for years we worked together and our marriage became stronger.
Then tragedy struck. In 2001, after the wake of 911, my father-in-law who helped us out and told Pete that I was worth giving another chance, he lost his battle with cancer on Nov. 28th just two days after Thanksgiving. It was a devastating blow. I couldn't work anymore and I lost myself to grief. For two years, I had grown so fond of Daddy We that I thought of him like my own father but better. To this day, I'll never forget his words he said to my husband about me in the little diner outside of town that we always went to on Sundays when I returned. "She may be rough around the edges but she's smart. She's worth fighting off Hell to keep her." I think in his own way, he had forgiven me because I realized my faults and saw right through the barrier that I had put up.
A few years had passed and I was back working but not in security. I became a package handler and I was working hard. I can't count how many times I would come home in severe pain. As time moved on and I spent years working for Fed Ex, (About 5 to be exact) I was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder. Around this time, my brother Ted and his wife thought that it was a good idea to call CPS (Child protective Services) on us because we refused them custody of our kids since they couldn't have any of their own. They claimed that we were unfit and they retaliated against us for not allowing them in our home, but there was more under the surface that we never knew about. Of course we couldn't prove this and so my son was later removed from the home thanks to Ted's involvement and no thanks from my psychologist's reports for backing me like he said they would. This happened in 2004 and he was 10 at the time.
In 2007, three years later, I found out that he had committed suicide from a friend that was a police officer. A friend of hers that worked for KCPD and another from Child Protective Services that handled the case told her about it. I didn't find this out until the day we were moving away to go to Texas. I had enough of that place and it was then that I knew there was no reason to stay. With a brother-in-law that was worse than the devil in both greed and pride, we had nothing to hold on to.
We stayed with my parents in San Antonio for a while and I held down 3 jobs. My writing was put on hold and so were my other plans. In 2008 I saved up some money and took a trip with my daughter, just me and her, to California to meet a friend. She got to see Disney Land, Long Beach and she saw a lot of celebrity impersonators when we visited Los Angelas. We had a blast.
We moved into this little house not far from my parent's where I'm still currently living with my 11 cats, 2 birds, a dog, husband and daughter. It's a happy home now. I'm still adjusting with some things but I have a better attitude about life now. I'm approaching 40 soon and I'm still writing. RP used to be a coping mechanism for me and while I don't talk about my life much, it's because now I have closure. Now, RP is a way for me to become creative and work with others to create a world with the characters I have. I don't see it as a hobby, I see it as a window into a new world. It may sound weird to some people but my imagination hasn't left me and it has always been there for me.
I'm coping with a lot of pain now from wrecking my body but that's okay. I think I lived a pretty full life and there's a lot more in store for me in the future. I'll face it and the challenges with dignity.
So, that's my life in a nutshell. Yep, it's a big nut.